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I’ve joined the iPod generation. With reservations. Why did it take me so long? Well, a few reasons. One, I’m in the house most of the time, where I can listen to our whole collection of flacs and mp3s over the speakers attached to the server upstairs. Two, I’ve had an mp3 player (a very old Creative 6G hard drive player–one of the first) which I don’t use anymore–mostly because it’s bulky and shaped like a CD player. Three, Paul already has a nice little Rio Karma, which I could technically use if desired. Four, apple players don’t do ogg or flac, which others do, so difficult to justify a purchase I’m not inclined to make anyway. Five, I despise the DRM model used by the Apple Store. Not that I have to use them, but still, it makes me not like Apple so much.

And yet I had nerd wood for the nano ever since they came out. I can’t help it! Apple hardware is so sexy. I love my mom’s Mac mini for the same reason.

So why now? I got a free one from work through our rewards program. :)

I was pleasantly surprised that they sent a 2G silver rather than 1G black nano–looks to be 2nd gen (by color, not black or white). It came with a hard case with integrated JVC speaker. Doesn’t sound much better than you’d expect for a small powered speaker, but a nice idea nonetheless.

I monkeyed around forever getting music to it…had to convert a lot of flacs to mp3, then move assloads of mp3s to my pc off our linux music server so iTunes could sync it. PITA. Inefficient. Plus it took me awhile to figure out the syncing; as I added new songs they weren’t syncing to the iPod…had to wipe out the sync list and copy the music list from the library again. But, it’s working and I’ve filled it to the brim (which seems like not nearly enough…).
Man, nice interface though. Love that click wheel (didn’t know they were touch sensitive); the color screen is nice and crisp. The size is right, too. I already ordered a set of soft covers with lanyards for $9. Now I just need non-earbud headphones…I hate those things…they either hurt my ears or fall out.

Now I must vow never to buy from the Apple store…

Adolescent guinea fowl, of course.

But their spots are so pretty…
Now there’s a handsome fella (Gus).

Alpha male Red.

Ever had your clothes washer unbalance a lot, have trouble draining, and leave the clothes all wet? Try checking the coin trap, even if it involves pulling out a screwdriver and removing the front cover. You’d be amazed what you might find…your washer may be eating socks after all (ours did).

So, we finally gave up on the Philips RC9800i remote. The Pronto line was just so much better, more configurable, easier to use…about all the 9800 had going for it was the color display. Things that were annoying abou it:

• you couldn’t pick which buttons you wanted displayed on the screens nor where they were displayed, nor the labels on them (except for a very few ‘user’ buttons on each remote). Even the buttons you didn’t program were left on the display to go ‘ding’ if you hit them.
• you had no control over what macro keys would appear on any given ‘watch’ remote. For example, although the ‘Watch DVD’ screen included the aspect button from the TV remote, the one for watching replay or cable tv did not. So, if you wanted to change the aspect ratio of the tv, you’d have to go to the main screen, pick individual remote, pick the remote, scroll through the screens, and find the key. On the Pronto, I always had a hard key dedicated to this function for all the remotes.
• No control at all over the functions of any of the hard keys
• Long pauses and lock-ups
• You could only scroll through device screens in one direction, meaning a LOT of screens to flip through in some cases (not to mention the annoying program guide which I never used)

In other words, it was meant for ‘ease of use’ in setting it up (wizards but no ProntoEdit), but very little configurability and ease of use for power users.
I’m going to give the old remote to my parents; their setup is less complicated and might not cause them as many issues with the remote. My dad might like it; he used to work for Philips (video cameras).
I ended up picking up a Philips TSU3500 Pronto. It’s one step up from the old TSU3000 we had. I would’ve loved a 7500 but didn’t feel like spending 6-700 hundred dollars for it; the color’s just not worth double the cost for me. Another nice thing about this choice: I had saved our old 3000 config file and was able to save it as a 3500 file and write it to the remote without having to do any new programming! I might pretty it up this weekend a bit, but it works now.

After walking around wegmans picking up groceries this sunday morning I’ve come to the following realization.

I would much rather be surrounded by large hairy men with B.O. then be downwind of a single grandma in her sunday best go to meeting perfume. That goes for grandpas and rest of the righteous as well.

Looks as if the Tivo Series 3 won’t have TivoToGo after all. That makes it almost infinitely less likely I’ll buy it…while I’d love a better interface than the piece of shit Scientific Atlanda 8300HD offered by Time Warner, I’m not willing to pay $800, a monthly fee, cable card fees, *and still* not be able to get my content off it.

By the way, Time Warner, you suck, too: “As of January 2006, any new digital services added will NOT be available with a CableCard.” That includes new channels such as Universal HD.

More on DRM.

And yummy…looking forward to more. Only a few more months until the younger chickens start laying!

And it’s a beaut! (hopefully tasty, too)

The proud parents (unless it was Gus, sneaky rooster!)

I think fall is probably my favorite time of the year. Not so much because of the death, although the hojillion mosquitoes no longer sucking on me is certainly a relief. Mostly it is my favorite because this is the time of year when I get to do more outdoor work. A significant amount of mother nature is going under the steel this fall, and the little tastes I’m getting as I ramp up for it make me happy. It is also makeing me very sore ;), those log splitting muscles don’t get much use in the summer.

Also, happy Bday Mr. Buell, hope the knee gets better.